No More Learning

and what (exclaims she) can I find
Which may avail to minister repose,
If aye, by this or that desire inclined,
You don your harness to affront new foes?
What boots it to restore my harassed mind
That I behold one fearful quarrel's close,
Against one champion moved for love of me,
If one as fierce already kindled be?

XXXIII
"Woe worth me! I was proud, with little right,
So good a king, so stout a cavalier
For he should in the fierce and dangerous fight
Peril his life, who now, I see to clear,
Upon a ground of strife so passing light,
With the same risk prepares to couch the spear.
You, more than love for me, to strife impels
The natural rage, wherewith your bosom swells.

XXXIV
"But if the love you force yourself to show,
Be in good earnest, that which you profess,
By this I pray you, by that chastening woe
Which does my spirit, does my heart oppress,
Be not concerned, because the bird of snow
Rogero, pictured on his shield, possess.
I know not wherefore you should joy or grieve
That he the blazoned buckler bear or leave.

XXXV
"Much evil may ensue and little gain
Out of the battle you to wage prepare;
Small guerdon will be bought with mickle pain
If from Rogero you his eagle bear;
But if your fortune shifts on listed plain,
She whom you hold not captive by her hair,
You cause an evil with such mischief fraught,
My heart is broken at the simple thought.

XXXVI
"If of small value life to you appear,
And you esteem a painted bird more high,
At least for my life's sake esteem yours dear;
For one without the other shall not die.
With you to die excites in me no fear;
With you, prepared for life or death am I:
Yet would I fain not die so ill content,
As I should die if you before me went. "

XXXVII
Accompanying words with tears and sighs,
In such, or such like speech she him did pray,
Throughout that livelong night, in piteous wise,
Hoping her lover's anger to allay;
And Mandricardo, sucking from her eyes
Those sweet tears, glittering in their humid ray,
And that sweet moan, from lips more deeply dyed
Than crimson rose, himself in tears, replied.

XXXVIII
"Alack! my dearest life! take thou no dread,
Alack! for love of Heaven!
of thing so light:
For if (to my sole harm) with banners spread,
Their following of the Frank or paynim rite
King Agramant and Charles united led,
This need not cause you matter for affright.
What poor account you make of me is clear
If this one, sole, Rogero breeds such fear.

XXXIX
"And yet should you remember how alone
(Nor had I scimetar or sword in hand)
Of knights, with a spear's truncheon overthrown,
I singly cleared the field, an armed band.
Though to his shame and sorrow this he own,
Gradasso tells to them who make demand,
He was my prisoner in the Syrian tower:
Yet other than Rogero's is his power.

XL
"Not King Gradasso will the truth deny:
Sacripant knows it and your Isolier:
I say King Sacripant of Circassy,
And Aquilant, and Gryphon, famous peer;
With hundreds -- yea and more -- from far and nigh
Made prisoners at that fearful pass whilere,
Baptized or Infidel; and all by me
From prison on the selfsame day set free.

XLI
"And even yet they marvel evermore
At the great feat which I performed that day;
Greater than if the squadrons of the Moor
And Frank united I had held at bay;
And shall Rogero, new to martial lore,
Me, onto to one, with scathe or scorn appay?
And me shall now this young Rogero scare,
When Hector's sword and Hector's arms I wear?

XLII
"Ah! as I might have won you from my foe,
Why did I not for you in arms contend?
I so had them my valour shown, I know,
You would have well foreseen Rogero's end.
For heaven's sake dry your tears, nor by such woe
-- An evil omen for my arms -- offend;
And learn, 'tis Honour pricks me to the field,
And not an argent bird and blazoned shield. "

XLIII
So said he; and with reasons passing good
To him that dame replied, with saddest face;
Nor only would have changed his sullen mood,
But would have moved a pillar from its place.
She would the champion quickly have subdued,
Though she was gowned, he locked in iron case;
And make him satisfy the Moorish lord,
If Agramant spake further of accord;

XLIV
And had; but that Aurora -- on his way
Ushering aye the sun -- no sooner stirred,
Than young Rogero, anxious to display
That rightfully he bore Jove's beauteous bird,
To cut the quarrel short, and lest delay
Be further interposed, in act or word,
Where round the palisade the people close,
Appears in armour and his bugle blows.

XLV
When that loud sound is by the Tartar heard,
Which the proud warrior to the strife defies,
No more of treaty will he hear a word:
From bed upspringing, "Arms," the monarch cries,
And shows a visage with such fury stirred,
Doralice dares no longer peace advise,
Nor speak of treaty or of truce anew;
And now parforce the battle must ensue.

XLVI
The Tartar arms himself in haste; with pain
The wonted service of his squires he tarries:
This done, he springs upon the steed amain,
Erewhile the champion's who defended Paris;
And him with speed towards the listed plain,
Fixt for that fierce assay, the courser carries.
Even then the king and barons thither made,
So that the strife was little time delaid.